


Damsel Not So in Distress

by PyroQueenOfFire



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age of Ultron spoilers ahead too but mostly later, Also Angel's other stories are being moved from FF but yeah this is fun times, F/M, I only own Angel, Language and sex happens in here too so be warned now, Multi, My sister really owns Andy, The story is mine but I don't own the comic book or movie characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3854824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyroQueenOfFire/pseuds/PyroQueenOfFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela Stark had no idea that the fall of S.H.E.I.L.D. would affect her this much...or how much she needed Steve Rogers to piece her back together when she thought she'd been picking up the pieces herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR’S NOTE:
> 
> Hello, everyone—no, I am not dead. I’ve been lost in the world of RP instead of writing my FanFics and I am sorry for that. However, since I have a bunch of inbox messages asking me about Angel and Steve…here I am after seeing Age of Ultron to give you just that…ANGEL AND STEVE.
> 
> Keep in mind that I am placing this during the movie and there will be flashbacks and references to things that happened prior in other fics I've written with her in them that will eventually make it from FF over to here (same screename as here if you want to check them out). This has differences so it’s not really a sequel, but yeah. Also before we dive in, here is a little disclaimer because there are still some of you that don’t actually know how the X-gene works…
> 
> The X-gene is on the X chromosome: that is stated in the comics. It is a mutated x chromosome. Now, men, are XY, and women are XX, meaning men have only one x chromosome and then the x that makes them men, and women have two x chromosomes. In the comics it is stated that both genders can pass the gene, which makes a whole lot of sense doesn’t it? Do not let XMen 2, confuse you with Pyro spouting his nonsense about men only passing the gene. He literally had no clue what he was talking about.
> 
> Men pass the Y chromosome to sons. That means that a male mutant? He can’t spawn a male mutant heir. Well, he could—but it’s not because of his x chromosome it’s because of his female partner’s x chromosome as women can only pass the x chromosomes. That is not only basic genetics, but it is canon comic book stuff too because Stan Lee actually knew what he was talking about when he created mutants.
> 
> So Angel? Got her gene from her mother. Could have gotten it from Howard since men pass the x chromosome to daughters only, but she did not and I don’t want any random guests coming around telling me I haven’t read the comics when all I need from canon was right there in the text. That has happened twice now on my other mutant stuff and I find it really disconcerting that people don’t actually seem to know this stuff when it is in the comics and basic genetics as well. So I wanted that out of the way first and foremost right now.
> 
> That being said, this is a mature fic and you’re being warned now so I don’t get in trouble for what you’re signing on to read. Other than that? Have fun, my lovelies. I have missed you all.
> 
> WARNINGS: Dark Themes, Violence, Torture, Sex, Language  
> I own only the story and my own original characters

Angela Stark had taken the fall of S.H.E.I.L.D. pretty hard, but it wasn’t really until she started to work with her older brother, Tony, that things really started to fall into place again. Ever since she’d told Tony that she was an agent, things between them had changed because for more than half of her life she’d been hiding it from him. Then Hydra came out of the cracks just when she finally got the courage to ask Steve out (much to Tony’s displeasure) and everything just got worse from there. He wasn’t over Peggy, and she felt like a secret weapon fashioned to destroy, went sent her into her own downward spiral that only Tony could get her out of.

Much to Adrienne—Andy—Mett’s displeasure.

Andy was Angel’s best friend and always the one that seemed to pull her out of trouble even if sometimes they got into it together in the first place, and yet even she couldn’t reach her friend. So she took that time to do more teaching at _Xavier’s School For the Gifted_ , and let Angel be. If she spiraled too much, then Andy would jump in, but until then, Andy had young mutants to protect and Angel needed to find a way to get her shit together on her own.

It wasn’t as if she was running around destroying New York or anything, and after helping her brother with his PTSD and meeting her biological mother, she needed to go underground. She needed to feel like more than the powerful mutant that she was and that was just it: how powerful _was_ she? Had Fury recruited her because of her skills, or just because he needed a weapon? Had Hydra inadvertently planted that idea in his head?

She wasn’t sure she’d ever know the _true_ answer to that, so she spent her days drinking a little too much, checking in on Tony, and beating punching bags. Some of that time was spent trying to figure out more of her power—the power of manipulation—and this particular day, she was feeling a little better. Perhaps it was because she’d get to see Steve, but maybe it was a little bit more than that.

“Isn’t it a little bit early to go around punching things?” Tony asked as he saw his sister enter the Avengers Tower, a little smirk on his face at her attire. “I mean…you smell awful, is all.”

Angel rolled her eyes, her brown hair up in a ponytail, yoga pants and a yoga tank top on under a work out jacket. “I smell like roses compared to you.”

“Not so much—unless those roses smell awful,” he said with a smile.

She knew that he was just teasing and honestly she appreciated it. Angel needed to have things be a little bit more back to normal, especially with helping her brother out with things lately. She might not still entirely know what she was or what she spent her life working for anymore, but helping with the Avengers was fun even if she wasn’t really one herself…just an honorary one. After all, when they needed her, she was right there suited up and ready fight.

She’d always been ready for a fight.

“Cap was wondering where you were,” Tony told her, noticing how that light in her eyes that rarely showed any more, surfaced just at the mention of it. “Kidding—Maria wanted to see you. You should shower first though.”

Angel punched her brother in the shoulder but she laughed, a genuine laugh that Tony liked to hear even if he sometimes denied it. Well, he almost always denied it, but if you knew him then you knew just how much she meant to him. It didn’t matter to him that his mother wasn’t her mother: she was his flesh and blood and one of the most important things in the world to him.

“How is Nat?” Angel asked as she took her jacket off, walking with him toward the showers.

She had her own office and everything, but she wanted to be treated more like an agent than an employee. After all, fighting was what she knew and she wanted to feel like she was still making a difference in the world that counted. Taking the hair band out of her hair, Angel took a breath and then looked at Tony.

Tony shrugged and then pointed toward the training room. “You tell me. She was in there earlier as far as I knew.”

Leaving her to it, Tony took his leave and Angel bounded into the training room only to find Natasha all dressed in her civies and ready to leave. She smiled though when she saw Angel and returned the embrace that was given to her. They’d been through a lot, the two of them, and while they weren’t on the same level as Natasha was with Clint and Angel was with Andy, it was close and they were the better for it.

“If you’re looking to catch Steve punching things, you just missed him,” Natasha told her with a smile.

Angel rolled her eyes but a blush rose in her cheeks. “No, I was actually looking for you. I know you guys had a mission not that long ago.”

“Yeah, well—Hydra never sleeps,” Natasha put in.

“No…no, they don’t, I know that well,” Angel admitted, glancing at her feet. “You know, with all the Steve teasing, I’m surprised he doesn’t avoid me more.”

“He doesn’t avoid you now,” Natasha explained, looking up as Bruce Banner walked by to grab something.

Angel noticed that look, but she’d been noticing it more and more lately and seeing as how she _understood_ the look, it wasn’t hard to piece together. She kept the smile to herself though and waved at Bruce as he smiled at the two, his gaze lingering on Natasha before he left. Natasha just waved it off though, and changed the subject as always so Angel decided not to ask until later.

“Tony’s throwing a party,” Natasha put in. “You going to mingle with Steve or no?”

Laughing, Angel rolled her eyes again. “I’ll be talking to him as much as I ever do before Thor steals his attention.”

“Yes, but then when Andy steals Thor’s attention? They’ve been cozy lately…”

“Because their connection is one that spans beyond all of this. They may not be together now, because Thor has Jane, but Andy adapts—that’s literally her super power. She and Thor are still going to be here long after the rest of us are gone and they’ll have each other. One day…”

Natasha nodded and then spoke up. “I need to do a couple of things for Clint, but text me in a couple of hours and I’ll swing by your place.”

“I’m, actually, uh…still bunking with Tony and Pepper,” Angel admitted, having not quite wanted to go back to her place since Hydra had shown themselves.

“Either way, I’ll steal you away and we can have some much needed us time.”

“I’d like that…”

Nodding at each other, Natasha left and Angel went to the showers, cleaning herself up and then changing into proper ‘work’ attire before heading back to see her brother. She always felt a little more business in her skirt and blouse, the heels on and her hair down for now. Angel wasn’t doing much today, but apparently she was running into Steve Rogers—and _literally_.

“Crap, I’m sorry,” Angel said as her face hit his shoulder and he made an ‘oof’ sound.

Steve chucked though, and waved it off. “Not the first nor the last time you’re going to run into me, Angel.”

“This is true,” she told him, giving him that smile she seemed to only give him and no one else.

Angel had always had a thing for Steve and while they had bonded before and a lot over the last few years, he was adjusting. He was adjusting and he still thought of Peggy and Angel just wanted him to be happy. Whether or not she wanted to date him didn’t matter because only Steve mattered. Just getting to work side by side with him was really all that she needed and she rested her hand on his arm, something Steve had actually grown to like—that tactile comfort that she provided.

“I’m still sorry my face ran into you,” she said and then slowly pulled her hand back and pointed toward the elevator. “I have to go see the jerk face I call my brother.”

Steve laughed and held his hands up in mock surrender. “By all means don’t let me stop you. Continue…”

Angel laughed too and walked past him, only to turn around and blush a little as he was watching her go. “Hey, Steve?” she asked, having stopped calling him ‘Cap’ a couple of years ago.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you came back in one piece.”

Steve smiled at her fondly when she nodded at that and then turned to leave, waiting until she was to the elevator before he turned and continued on his way. He had a couple of things to talk to Maria about and Angel was clearly on a mission to talk to her brother, but he regretted things were like this. Yeah, they had conversations and they always talked when they ran into each other, but something had changed before Hydra was exposed and Steve still didn’t know what that was…

…but he wanted to.


	2. Reliving It

Tony had told her when she had gotten into the tower that Maria needed her, but after her shower and the bumping into Steve, it had slipped Angel’s mind. So she found him in his workspace with Bruce and smiled when they both looked at her and beamed. While she wasn’t best friends with Bruce or anything, she was important to Tony and that made her important to Bruce as well.

“So, I thought that maybe we could spend time together, but you’re doing science stuff,” she said before sticking her tongue out at her brother.

Rolling his eyes, Tony kept working on what he was doing. “So Maria said nothing of interest to you?”

“Oh my God, I forgot!” Angel exclaimed, her face showing that of shock rather than playfulness now.

Bruce chuckled as Angel quickly turned and fled the room, going back to the elevator and heading to the floor that held Maria’s office. Once there, she hurried down the corridor and then got to Maria’s office and threw open the door. She should have knocked and deep in the recesses on her mind she knew that, but she was so worried about forgetting all about Maria that she hadn’t even thought that maybe she might be occupied.

“I’m sorry!” Angel blurted out immediately. “Tony told me that you wanted to see me, but it was after a workout and I had to shower and then I very literally ran into Ste—oh…hi, Steve…”

Her whole face flushed a shade of crimson and she wasn’t quite sure what to do when she saw Steve sitting there across from Maria having a chat. They talked a lot because Maria was constantly doing things for Tony and the Avengers and Steve, well, led the Avengers. Angel should have known that Steve was going to be here and it didn’t help that he was smiling. Maria was smiling too, and Angel honestly wished that the Earth would open up right then and there and swallow her whole.

“Captain Rogers and I were just going over some details of the last mission,” Maria explained, letting the smile fade so that she could put on the façade of a more business-like nature. “I did need to speak with you, however. You remember what happened the last time you forgot…”

 

_Angel winced rather violently when Natasha pressed the alcohol soaked cloth to the wound on her side. Biting her lip she let out a cry, forgetting momentarily that it was busted from the whole ordeal that she’d undergone._

_“How do you just ‘forget’ ammo?” Natasha asked her, giving her that judging little stare._

_Shaking her head, Angel took a breath. “I just did, okay?”_

_“No, it’s not okay. Your brother is literally going to have a cow if you get killed. He doesn’t even know that you do this for a living so how does anyway explain you coming home in a body bag?” Natasha asked her, raising her eyebrows at her._

_“I was never going to end up coming home in a body bag, Tasha.”_

_“Oh, so you were going to use the full extent of your powers then to counteract the lack of bullets?”_

_Angel opened up her mouth to continue this argument, but something told her that she had to just let that little bit there go. After the last bit that she had learned about her powers in the first place, she hadn’t really been all that excited to try to use them again. There was so much about them that she didn’t understand and she wondered sometimes if she needed to go back to Xavier and explore them more. What if she’d left the mansion too soon to join S.H.I.E.L.D.? What if this was just teaching her that without being one hundred percent with her powers, she was destined to be a failure?_

_“Just…I need to rest up a bit and then I’ll heal,” Angel said finally, clearly avoiding the question._

_Natasha nodded slowly and then took a breath. “No one is stopping you from harnessing your true potential.”_

_“I don’t want to end up on some list somewhere marking me as a monster,” Angel said quickly and honestly she hadn’t meant to let that slip at all._

_She had gone so long thinking that she was a monster and it was part of what had made Natasha and Angel click so well. They both had a lot of darkness in their pasts and while Natasha had a lot more, they were plagued with that they were…what they had been turned into. They were both weapons and they wanted to believe that it was for a good cause, but they saw the world in so many shades of gray that there were always doubts._

_“Just put that you ran out in the report…don’t ever say that you ‘forgot’.”_

 

Angel shook the thoughts away pretty easily, but Steve could tell just by looking into her eyes that there was a distance there that hadn’t been a moment before. She was reliving memories and he knew that she had been through a lot…more than that he _understood_ that there were things that she had gone through that would stay with her forever. He had moments like that as well and it dawned on him that maybe he should take his leave and let her and Maria talk.

“I was just finishing up, so I’ll let you two talk,” Steve said, standing up and then smiling at them both. “See you both at Stark’s shindig?”

Laughing a little at his choice of words, Angel nodded. “I never miss them.”

“I’ll be there,” Maria told him with a nod.

“Good—see you both later then,” Steve smiled, taking his leave and only looking back once.

Maria noted how Angel glanced at him too and threw him that smile that didn’t grace her face all that often, and she smiled a little too. However, this was about business and so when Angel sat down in the chair that Steve had vacated, she pulled up a file on her tablet and handed it over to Angel to look over. Angel nodded and looked the file over, seeing very clearly that it was a mission in which she’d need a partner and even more than that: she’d have to use her powers.

Swallowing, Angel tried not to let any nervousness show in her features, but she could clearly remember the last time that she and Andy had been involved with bringing in people with powers. Thinking about what could have happened sent a chill down her spine and her scar at the base of her hairline, back on her neck throbbed. It had been years since William Styker had tortured her, but whenever a mission went wrong and her powers failed her, that was what she remembered.

“I’ll get in contact with Andy, then,” Angel said with a nod, looking up to meet Maria’s eyes. “She and I can get in and out and bring him in. It seems simple enough anyway,” she continued, hoping she wasn’t sounding either too eager, or too sure of herself that things would be fine.

She knew better than anyone that there could _always_ be complications.

“I’ve already contacted Adrienne, but it will be good for you to get in touch as well. After all, you’ll be partners after this, right?” Maria asked, though she knew full well that Angel and Andy had been partners before.

Angel nodded and handed the tablet back. “Yes, ma’am. Was that all? Just a mission?”

“That and you’ve been distracted,” Maria pointed out, slipping a bit into friend mode. “Are you doing alright since the last mission?”

 

_There was a pounding in her head and a ringing in her ears as Angel lay there on her back with her eyes squeezed shut like they were. The blast had sent her back on her back, the sharp pain going through her from her back as the air was pushed out of her lungs. For just a moment she lay there winded and sore, but as her eyes opened, she was more aware of the fact that there was a man moving toward her._

_He should have just shot her, because the moment she drew her legs up, she popped up from the ground to her feet and reached out to touch his face with her bare hand. There was a moment of warmth and fuzziness on his end before he found a pain shooting through him and he collapsed on his knees, Angel making his blood boil. After all, he’d tried to kill her and something about it all had made her snap._

 

“Angel?” Maria asked her, noticing that she was spacing out.

Looking up, Angel took a breath and gave her a smile she hoped was reassuring. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired today from all of the training, is all.”

It was a terrible lie, but Maria let it go when Angel stood up to get ready to leave her office because clearly she didn’t want to talk about it. Maria thought about telling Tony that Angel needed someone to talk to, and made a note of it as Angel headed for the door.

“I sent a copy of the file to you and I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon to finalize the plan?” Maria asked, but it was more of an order.

Angel nodded at her and through her a more convincing smile. “Yeah, I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

That said, Angel left the office, only to find herself gasping because once again she had been startled today, and once again it was by Steve. He blushed, both of them laughing a bit because it was obvious that he’d scared her and they both knew that it wasn’t intentional. Angel smiled brightly at him though, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

“You looked like you might need a pick-me-up,” Steve smiled, motioning down the hallway. “What do you say you and I go get a coffee and unwind a bit?”

Angel nodded slowly, knowing he was only doing this because she’d been acting weird for the last little bit and spacing out a bit. “I would love that. You’re completely winning here though because you know that coffee is my weakness, Steve.”

“I’ve learned that if you can get the upper hand in a situation, you probably should,” he offered, the smile growing a bit as some of their old playfulness started to filter through.

“You’re hanging out with my brother too much,” she said with a laugh, shaking her head.

He nodded slowly. “Maybe…but maybe you getting coffee with me could slowly help to rectify that.”

“You’re right…it’s for a good cause,” she teased, but she started to walk and he walked with her. “The coffee cart two blocks over?”

“The coffee cart two blocks over.”


End file.
